Let's not forget the LCD's!

Remember when the magic of digital watches arrived?
Firstly it was the glowing red LED's of such things as the Pulsar range (now very collectible) and then the world was taken by storm with companies such as Casio, Citizen and Seiko producing a vast range of LCD watches - such as the two seen here.

The first watch featured is an example of Seiko's A639 module, from 1981.
This model included regular time-keeping, in 12 or 24-hour mode; day & date; an hourly chime; an alarm and a stop-watch. It also boasted a light - operated by the bottom-right button.


This watch - like most LCD Seiko models - came with a stainless-steel case and bracelet, as pictured here.
The clasp is signed and includes Seiko's "SQ" logo to indicate quartz timing.

12-HOUR or 24-HOUR SETTINGS:
For those of you who have this watch but not the user's manual or guide to the settings, one of the most confusing is how to switch between 12-hour and 24-hour display. Each of the others are pretty straight-forward, but this one had me beat for a while.

This is the sequence:
Go to Time Setting mode, then sequence through seconds, then minutes, then tens of minutes, then hour and when in the hour-setting mode (the hour digit is flashing) press the bottom right-hand button.
Voila! You can switch between 12 or 24-hour display.
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SOLD (July 2010)

One of my favourite LCD watches is this Citizen digital-analogue (Digi-Ana) hybrid from October 1979.
This watch features dual-time capability - one display in analogue and the other in digital. Two time-zones can be monitored if desired.
In addition there is an hourly chime; an alarm feature; day & date and also a stopwatch.

I was fortunate when buying this watch in that it includes the original Citizen (signed) leather watch-band; a nice change from the regular stainless-steel bracelets.

Both of the watches operate perfectly.
I had to clean around the press-buttons of the Citizen, removing a couple of decades of gunk.
Once this was accomplished, all functions resumed normal service - just as they had done some 20 years previously, when the watch was shipped from the Citizen factory.


A nice detour from the analogues and these are two watches which I wear occasionally but mainly use to keep a pretty accurate check on the time-keeping qualities of some of my non-quartz models.

Everyone should own at least one period Seiko, Casio or Citizen LCD.....just for old-times sake!